World

This racial justice map sheds light on an often overlooked part of U.S. history

Dark parts of American history are often swept under the rug for being too shameful and painful. But engaging with that history is crucial to understand the present — and figure out how to move forward.

A new website, called Monroe Work Today, is bringing the harrowing history of lynching in the United States out of the shadows. Its detailed map and other resources document the names and experiences of nearly 5,000 people of color who were killed between 1835 and 1963.

"History class taught you the tip of the iceberg," the site reads. "Every citizen has a duty to know this story. This history belongs to everyone."

Image: Monroe Work Today

The site serves as a way to fill some of the gaps in how schools teach students about racism in America, helping to curb the whitewashing of textbooks.

Monroe Work Today's main feature is a map of the country, which meticulously marks locations in the U.S. where people were lynched. The map's pins include the names of those who were killed and the "crimes" behind their deaths, helping to make their stories known.

"It was created to carry forward the idea that history can be well-designed and on your mobile phone and interesting and interactive."

Site creator RJ Ramey and his team at Auut Studio, which creates resources for history teachers, pored over records of lynchings for five years. Their database turned into the final map, and the site finally launched in November 2016.

"It was created to carry forward the idea that history can be well-designed and on your mobile phone and interesting and interactive," Ramey told Mashable. "Some parts of history may seem boring or incomplete in a textbook, but don't have to be."

The site brings to life the research of Monroe Nathan Work, a sociologist from Tuskegee University who documented every known lynching in the U.S. during his lifetime. Work was born in 1866 and died in 1945, living through the period in which the violent practice was most popular.

But making the site and expanding on Work's data also required a lot of modern research and books.

"If I'm going to make a map to paint a picture of this history, I owe it to everyone to make an accurate map," Ramey said. "You can't just rely on [Work's] data of 85 years ago — there haven't been corrections made to it. So either do it right or don't do it. That's why it turned into a five-year project."

Image: Monroe Work Today

Ramey was inspired to start the project after he read At The Hands of Persons Unknown, an account of lynching in America, as a young adult. He was learning this essential part of U.S. history for the first time — and decided more people should have access to this information.

"I wanted this to be more than something shocking that circulates on Twitter for a bit, then disappears."

"It was incredibly moving and incredibly new to me," Ramey said. "All of us have some sense that this happened, but we think of it as a rare thing. In fact, it wasn't. And I never really had a teacher who shared that information with me."

Before launching the site, Ramey worked tirelessly to find a map of lynching victims in the century after the Civil War. But none existed, prompting him to create a user-friendly digital map to release the data his team compiled.

"The names have always been kept safe, but distant, in old archives and scholarly books and dissertations," it says on Monroe Work Today. "This site leaves the record open for all Americans, especially high school students who want to learn more than what their textbook has to say."

Yet Ramey said even this comprehensive database could never cover the full history of lynching, because documentation of every instance doesn't exist. That means parts of the shameful history will always remain hidden.

Image: Monroe Work Today

The site focuses on its educational aspects, framing the map around the history of lynching and how the violent practice's effects are still felt today.

"It's important to know why this is important — and what we then do with it."

"I wanted this to be more than something shocking that circulates on Twitter for a bit, then disappears," Ramey says. "It's important to know why this is important — and what we then do with it."

The "Discuss" section encourages students and teachers to connect the history of lynching to current racial justice movements, like Black Lives Matter. It also prompts viewers to think about current death penalties and how to respond to racial prejudice in their own lives.

Ramey, who is Arab-American, started the project before the Black Lives Matter movement was created in 2012. But he recognizes its relevance today in illuminating a violent history against people of color — especially black Americans.

"Today we have a movement that's saying, 'please stop killing us' and 'black lives matter' — and there are people today who still disagree with that," he says. "That's why this website needs to exist."

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